Software firms urged to home in on geolocation

Published on Thursday 30 September 2010 16:01

FOR some it will be a step too far towards the "Big Brother" culture conceived by George Orwell in his iconic novel 1984.

But Scottish software firms are being encouraged to take advantage of the lucrative opportunities offered by "geolocation", the next big technology craze which can trace people's exact movements.

Experts predict that the first developers to latch on to programmes such as Google Latitude and Foursquare will find themselves handsomely rewarded.

The geolocation trend is being compared with the iPhone "app" movement, which has allowed small technology companies in particular to make their mark by developing compatible programmes.

Stephen Whitelaw, the Scot behind several Silicon Valley success stories including Buchanan International, pressed firms at ScotlandIS's annual conference in Edinburgh last week to jump on the geolocation bandwagon.

"The first businesses to latch on to geolocation will make money," he said. "It's one of the big technologies coming through."

He believes applications could be developed that would allow advertisers to fire geolocation users promotional text messages or e-mails when they are near one of their shops or restaurants.

Like iPhone "apps", geolocation programmes would probably be cheap to develop, Whitelaw said.

"Ten years ago in the dotcom era you needed venture capital funding, now you can do it in your mother's spare bedroom,"

However, Whitelaw admitted that the technology also presented potentially huge security problems.

He highlighted examples such as the Dutch website "Please Rob Me" which tracked users of social media sites such as Twitter and gave minute-by-minute information on their movements.

The site sparked outrage from privacy groups when it launched earlier this year as it showed when people were not in their homes. The site has since ceased tracking Twitter messages and its owners state on the homepage that they are considering a "suitable way to continue".

Whitelaw said developers are, however, finding solutions to the security issues.

"Lots of people don't mind saying their location but they don't want others to know exactly where they are. Some of these programmes offer 'fuzzy geolocation'"

Polly Purvis, executive director of ScotlandIS, said that if used in the right way, geolocation programmes such as "Facebook Places" could allow particularly young and emerging software developers in Scotland to make a name for themselves.

"There are definitely opportunities around it," she said. "We've seen a breaking down of barriers for small companies to develop applications quickly and to get them out to a mass market quickly. Young people [interested in software development] are the obvious place to start as they tend to understand the technology better than most other people."

She agreed the trend could offer the same growth as mobile phone apps but warned that developers specialising in this area often have to make a raft of programmes before they generate sizeable returns.

"People are making money out of phone applications but you have to do really, really well to make a lot of money out it. But as a way of gaining entry into the market, it's a good stepping stone. You can go on to develop more sophisticated software or further apps."